Thursday, June 12, 2014

A
week after my Cordillera ride, as promised to my friend ReyM, we scheduled a
ride and hike activity to a nearby mountain, easy trek but yet providing
extraordinary experience. And we found Mt. Romelo fit for what we are looking.
No special preparations we did since this will be a quick week-end ride with
the touch of a not so high mountain.

March 2, seven in the morning, ReyM and I met in our house with our
friend Albert. Prepared our riding gear and took-off around 7:30am. Continue
riding via C-6 to Taytay to Pililia, Rizal and had our breakfast on a Lomi house along the highway in
Pililia, Rizal.

After breakfast, continued riding all the way to Famy, Laguna. We drop
by at Petron Famy to by some stuff like water and skyflakes. Then to KIA 3
Restaurant at Baranggay Macatad, Siniloan, Laguna to buy our lunch pack. Then
proceed to the drop-off point where we parked our motorcycles for P20 each,
paid P50 entrance per person then start trekking.

Trekking guide is available at the drop-off point but we choose not to
get one since trail going-up is already established. Trail is easy, gradual
ascend with buko vendor at some points. From time to time, we are trying to do some trail running to introduce our
body how it feel to run on high elevation and uneven road which we plan to do
on our future runs.

Few more walks and we reached one of the highest point in the area. No
markings where the highest point is but we assumed that this is the summit since we cannot see higher point
than our current location.

From this area, you can already see the overlooking view of Laguna Bay and the
plains of Siniloan and Famy.

From what we called summit, a slow and gradual descend to the waterfalls
area will come next.

First falls that we reached is the Buruwisan
Falls where we took our lunch.

After lunch, we trek down going to the Old Buruwisan Falls. There is no established trail yet going down
this falls but I brought rope because we planned to go down this falls.
Unfortunately, our rope is short and very risky for us to go down without complete
rappelling gear and having a short rope. So, we just enjoyed having pictures at
the edge looking down and see how high and beautiful it is.

After some shots, we trek going-up again to Lanzones Falls where we enjoyed the
cold water. Swimming, waterfalls massage, playing with the rocks and more
picture taking.

After
almost an hour of staying in Lanzones Falls area, we packed our things and
again continue trekking going up to Batya-Batya Falls. Batya-Batya Falls has
also its unique beauty. A series of 2 falls shaped like batya or basin that’s
why it was called Batya-Batya Falls.
Water is very cold and clean and is very irresistible not to swim with it. Both
basins are very deep and we didn’t even reached the bottom when we tried diving
on it.

We
enjoyed so much swimming on the cold water until we noticed that the sun is
already going down. We prepared ourselves and start trekking going down, and we
found out that all other hikers have gone and we are the only group left in the
area. Mini-stores along the trail that they usually open during
week-end are already closed. Time check and it is approaching 6pm. Need not to
hurry because the good thing is we got the perfect timing to watch the sun
going down from the summit view, and here are some beautiful pictures of Mt. Romelo Sunset.

Around 7PM when we arrived at the parking area, cleaned ourselves,
changed clothes then head up to KIA3 Restaurant for our dinner and few
pasalubong shopping.

It’s a night ride from Siniloan to Metro Manila following the road of
Binangonan – C6. We arrived in Taguig safe past 10PM.